Professionalism

Seriously thought of making a formal complaint today, but realised here it would be pointless when the authorities are in bed with the quality dept and the quality dept is in bed with the engineering management... Reporting to the local papers crossed my mind too but in a country where papers are edited by the state, I'm pretty sure it would never make the press. So best I can do is blog it. What has put me on such a footing? Read on.

We had just done an engine hydraulic pump change and in line with the procedures from Airbus. The instruction was to bleed out any air in the hydraulic lines. My inspector raised this to our shift leader who assured us it was ok and needn't be done. From my recollection the previous 2 times this was done, both resulted in an aborted flight. In 1 of them the pilot could not retract the landing gear after take off. And in the other case air in the lines caused the a thrust reverser fault to occur soon after take off on 2 separate engines. With recent and close to home examples like those, how can he justify saying it need not be done? Its not even a lengthy or difficult thing to do.

But this next one really takes the cake and really pissed me off. "J" had discovered a latch which was part of the escape slide on the door to be corroded to the point the spring in it no longer sprung. It was just rusted to hell, totally unable to do what it was designed for. That part has 2 functions. The first is then you are on the ground and opening the door to get into the aircraft, this part ensures the slide does not go off. Because if it did you would be thrown several meters back and probably be hospitalized and in certain cases people have died. The other purpose that part serves is when you are in the aircraft and want to escape in cases of emergency, such as lets say a burning plane. When the door is opened and the escape slide inflates, that part is what also holds the slide to the aircraft, preventing the slide from inflating and then falling to the ground. Anyway even to the non-aviation minded I'm sure you can grasp the importance of this lil bit of kit. So having snagged this rusty bit of equipment, with "J" feeling he had an inspection well done, he moved on to looking for a new part from stores to install. But true to the uselessness of support out here, no parts were available. Next step and "J" knew was to raise the issue to the shift leader so he could either ground the aircraft till a new part was delivered or dispatch the aircraft with the fault but with a reduced passenger load due to the inoperative door. But he decided to take a 3rd route, telling "J" to squirt a load of oil over it and reinstall it!!! I'm sure anyone could tell you, if you had a part with broken spring, spraying some oil on it will not make it work again. But to him it was fine.

All of the good engineers I've worked with have always used their judgement and we know certain lil things can be let go, like a few missing screws in a non critical skin panel, a few missing patches of paint or a couple of drips of oil out of an engine. But this is on a totally differently level. As with this item if it does not function as it should, in either case people could very possibly die. Be it the surprised ground crew, blown away while trying to get into the aircraft, or the passengers stranded in a burning aircraft because the escape slide had fallen off. It's just beyond me how someone take crucial issues like these with such irresponsibility.

Oh by the way, the shift leader, he is the same guy who proclaimed publicly that "J" and I were the laziest most useless people he had ever worked with, as well as writing up our shitty appraisal.